Subdividing and Wall Building
  by Marsha Abelman

We are a species that likes to subdivide. Humans constantly sort and label our land and our "stuff," making sure things are identified as "ours," and "not theirs." We even group ourselves into cliques, sort ourselves by tribal clothing and passwords, gather in clubhouses and look out at the "others." We cannot be happy to see ourselves as one big human family; we can't simply allow that the "others" are really just like "us." All humans were born for reasons unknown, are struggling to reproduce and protect and feed our young, are trying to stay warm and dry, but will all eventually die and cease to exist for the other humans.

Penn Jillette's recent audio essay, "I Believe there is No God" on NPR's "This I Believe" series solicited a rancorous rebuttal from another listener. Penn (of the magic act Penn & Teller) didn't demean believers, but just explained, with his characteristic sharp humor, his own non-belief. Yet the man who replied to his essay was quite irritated, and he defended belief, saying that believers are good people who help others in need and in times of disaster because they believe in God.


There's that subdividing, again! The man sits behind his self-created wall, looking out at the "others" - in this case, non-believers - and sees them as different from (and not as good as) himself. He chooses not to see the non-believers who also donate and work to help those in need and during disasters simply because they believe in helping their fellow man. I have a non-religious friend who donated two months of her life working in a disaster area recently, not at the command of an invisible deity, but because she's a caring person.

If believers could only come out of their mental clubhouses and objectively talk with non-believers, they'd quickly see that there really is no difference between "us" and "them." Without labels, without subdivisions, we are all humans, first and foremost, and we're all trying to survive and to make sense of our existence.

Philosopher David Hume said, "Heaven and hell suppose two distinct species of men, the good and the bad, but the greater part of mankind float between vice and virtue. Were one to go round the world with an intention of giving a good supper to the righteous and a sound drubbing to the wicked, he would frequently be embarrassed in his choice, and would find the merits and demerits of most men and women scarcely amount to the value of either." Belief in deity certainly does not make a person more useful to society, because believers commit all the atrocities they like to think only "evil" people commit - adultery, incest, theft, vandalism, addictions, murder.

Believers in Jesus will remember his words to the woman caught in sexual indiscretions. The Pharisees who brought her to Jesus wanted to stone her. Jesus simply said to the woman, "Go, and sin no more." He didn't say, "Go, become a Navigator/Catholic/New Life church member/ Presbyterian/whatever." His concern was not that she go change other people's beliefs or actions but rather that she take personal responsibility. He wanted her to look at "the man in the mirror" not peer out the window to monitor and marginalize the neighbors.

With apologies to the New Testament writer, let's just "go, and subdivide no more."
 

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